BINGING ON COWBOYS AND HORSES

COSTNER MODERNIZES UNDERSTANDING OF COWBOYS IN WILD WEST

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Kevin Costner has been to more than one rodeo.

But like his other leading roles, the family patriarch of a Montana ranching dynasty is compelled forward by the many nuances of humanity surviving daily life.

The television series Yellowstone (2018-2022) follows the Dutton family as the dynasty falls apart and then folds back together again, over and over.

Costner stars as John Dutton, Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton, Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton and Wes Bentley as Jamie Dutton.

The Dutton Yellowstone Ranch is the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, so Cole Hauser is needed to play Rip Weeler, the lead ranch hand. And Kelsey Asbille plays Monica Dutton to show the close interrelationships with American indigenous communities in Montana and Yellowstone National Park.

Writer Taylor Sheridan (Series Creator) intertwines the main narrative about running a ranch of such magnitude with the machinations of a family dynasty and the real politics of Montana.

Many aspects of life on a ranch recur with the cast giving more of themselves to the script each time the issues are revisited, but the family also faces new challenges all the time.

When the family becomes untied, then the camera shifts to the bunkhouse and how the cowboys, some of whom were recruited from prison, get along and get their work done.

For example, Rip Weeler has one rule about fighting on the ranch which is that if anyone wants to fight, they have to fight Rip Weeler, which quickly looks like a losing venture.

Yellowstone is not a reality television show about ranch life, but some aspects of the narrative deal with and intertwine with the profitability of ranching as a business.

Everything heats up a few notches after big corporate America shows up in the form of a real estate development company. Danny Huston plays the money man who moves from the city to provide oversight to his development interests. But his character is not used to the ruthlessness of ranchers and cowboys in the Montana wilderness.

Other ranchers have different interests.

Neal McDonough plays Malcolm Beck as part of another Montana ranching dynasty shared with his brother, Teal Beck, played by Terry Serpico.

The Beck Brothers have kept away from the Duttons until the prospect of permanent change is brought into the community by the real estate prospectors. The Becks go too far though, not being familiar with the Duttons’ fiercely competitive push back of all forms of competition.

Brecken Merrill plays the young Tate Dutton who is still too young to appreciate the machinations of the empire he stands eventually to inherit.

Series creator Sheridan presents the broad brush strokes of big time ranching, but then breaks up those scenes with intimate portraits of the characters and the relationships they foster.

Jefferson White plays a cowboy, not quite a ranch cowboy until he has been taught a few lessons about ranching, the bunkhouse culture and cows and horses. Rip makes sure Jimmy Hurdstrom is brought along. And when Jimmy finds out that what he is best at is bronco riding in the rodeo circuit, everyone takes a break from the ranch to watch the show.

But Sheridan even gets a bit more intimate and creates many poignant screen moments with the characters.

Costner and Merrill share many scenes as the grandfather is initially reunited with his grandson and then takes part in his upbringing on the ranch. Costner plays Dutton as a gentle and wise patriarch just as skilled in developing an heir apparent as maintaining a ranch empire.

Dutton though is also a cold, hardened cowboy who was taught the family business by his father and grandfather.

Kelly Reilly plays Dutton’s daughter, a rough, tough cowboy taking part in the executive functions of Montana’s business machinations. Beth cusses and spits on the ranch, but then dresses in nines to mingle with the business community in the city.

Reilly has come a long way in acting since her performances as Mary Watson in the Guy Ritchie directed Sherlock Holmes films. Beth seems to be the binary opposite of Mary, with a slightly different set of circumstances around her, although plying her trade bound to the patriarch in an environment still infused with a lot of mystery, death and chaos.

Beth is smitten by Rip, and the two permanent members of the ranch have this on again, off again Guy Ritchie produced Holmes/Watson type of relationship.

Similarly, Kelsey Asbille plays indigenous woman Monica Dutton who has married into the family dynamics as the wife of Kasey.

Executive producer Costner uses this relationship to underscore the importance of the indigenous presence in Yellowstone. 

The series begins with Kasey and Monica living on the reservation with their young son Tate. The family is quite content with their life even though the Yellowstone Ranch offers a much more comfortable way of life for them. But Kasey and his father have become estranged while Monica’s family kind of hesitantly accept him into their community.

This young family provides an important dynamic to the series as misfortune and opportunity gradually see Kasey and his family transition back into the Dutton family fold.

The indigenous culture has a permanent part in the script with the band chief acting a bit like a chief executive officer wanting to drive the Dutton’s off the band’s traditional territory.

Gil Birmingham plays Thomas Rainwater, the band chief who wants to build a casino and hotel resort along the fence line with the Duttons. Rainwater’s aspiration go even deeper with the end game of driving the value of land so high that the Duttons will not be able to pay the property taxes on the ranch, thus making for a quick sale to the band.

Birmingham shows how Rainwater is looking out for his constituents while harboring a bit of a historical grudge for the loss of independence to the white settlers.

This series has a few dull episodes for city folks not too interested in all the little details about cowboy life. 

Sheridan also writes several episodes for certain ranch scenarios, such as the arrival of cattle rustlers and the politics of livestock agents and local police heavily influenced by the Dutton dynasty.

Despite the presence of law and order characters, though, a lot of killing goes on in front of the camera and in the back story.

Yellowstone merges the wild, wild west cowboy with corporate America and the compelling mystery of where, when and how often the ruthlessness of both worlds will inevitably clash.

Four seasons of Yellowstone are currently streaming on Amazon Prime.